Definition

Hormonal therapy involves the manipulation of a patient’s endocrine system through the exogenous administration of gonadal steroidal hormones or hormonal antagonists that inhibit the production or activity of such hormones. Hormonal therapy for ovarian cancer is advantageous in its relative lack of toxicity and ease of administration, thus making it suitable even in patients with heavily pretreated ovarian cancer chemoresistance disease, compromised bone marrow function, indolent disease, and/or comorbid conditions that contraindicate cytotoxic ovarian cancer chemotherapy. Hormonal therapy in combination with other forms of targeted therapy might hold promise for treatment of ovarian cancer.

Characteristics

Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women and the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies in the United States. The poor ratio of overall survival to incidence in ovarian cancer results in part from the large percentage of...